Author Archives: Robin Bates

Trump=Gingham Dog, Musk=Calico Cat

By Robin Bates | Published: June 6, 2025

Think of the Trump-Musk spat as the gingham dog vs. the calico cat from the Eugene Field poem.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat", Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Eugene Field | Comments closed

Trump, Musk, and Little Black Sambo

By Robin Bates | Published: June 5, 2025

Trump and Musk coming to verbal altercations is like the tigers in “Little Black Sambo” devouring each other.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Helen Bannerman, Little Black Sambo | Comments closed

Budget Cutters vs. Art

By Robin Bates | Published: June 4, 2025

Two Joseph Fasano poems call out those budget cutters who are targeting the arts.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "For Those Who Defund the Arts as a Political Weapon", "For Those Who Try to Cut Funding for the Arts", Joseph Fasano | Comments closed

Children’s Lit in the Golden Age

By Robin Bates | Published: June 3, 2025

In “Children’s Book” Byatt explores why the Edwardian age was such a rich time for children’s lit.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "Soldier", A. S. Byatt, Beatrix Potter, Benjamin Bunny, Children's Book, Children's lit, Defence of Poesy, E. Nesbit, Edwardian Age, James Barrie, Kenneth Grahame, Kim, Peter Pan, Peter Rabbit, Philip Sidney, Puck of Pook's Hill, Railway Children, Rudyard Kipling, Rupert Brooke, wind in the willows | Comments closed

Byatt and Childhood Memories

By Robin Bates | Published: June 2, 2025

A.S. Byatt’s Children’s Book has me revisiting my Edwardian upbringing and the books from that period that my father read to me.

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Trumpists Edge Closer to 1984

By Robin Bates | Published: June 1, 2025

The Education secretary telling universities they should be in sync with the administration’s goals is further proof that it is following Big Brother’s playbook: Ignorance is strength.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 1984, George Orwell, Linda McMahon, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. | Comments closed

Mystic Harvest of the Fields of God

By Robin Bates | Published: May 31, 2025

A medieval Celtic Easter poem throbs with nature images.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "Easter Song", Celtic Christianity, Easter, Sedulius Scottus, Victoria Emily Jones | Comments closed

Classics to the Rescue in Dark Times

By Robin Bates | Published: May 29, 2025

In Trump’s first 100 days, Jill Lepore turned to 100 classics to survive.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "1914", "Fears in Solitude", "Nightingales Are Drunk", "Nose", "Story of the Bad Little Boy", "With Antecedents", Aesop, Antigone, classic literature, Dante, Eclogue II, Edith Wharton, Figure in the Carpet, Frogs Who Demanded a King, Grimm Brothers, Hafez, Henry James, Homer, Inferno, Jill Lepore, Jonathan Swift, Mark Twain, Matsuo Basho, Modest Proposal, Nikolai Gogol, Odyssey, Reckoning, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Six Servants, Sophocles, Virgil, Walt Whitman, Wilfred Owen, Yoshido Kenkō | Comments closed

MAGA’s “Get Out of Sin Free” Pass

By Robin Bates | Published: May 28, 2025

Browning poem on the antinomian thinker Johannes Agricola helps us understand some of Trump’s Christian followers.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "Johannes Agricola in Meditation", antinomianism, Christian nationalism, Donald Trump, Robert Browning, Trump's Christian supporters | Comments closed